1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a manual building material installation support and more particularly to a temporary support tool for supporting dry wall panels or the like unaided by a worker while the worker secures such permanently in position on a ceiling or wall of a building structure.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Efforts have been made in the past to render the installation of building panels such as sheetrock or other wall or ceiling building panels more efficient. Typically, at least two workers are needed to lift a four foot by twelve foot panel of sheetrock into place and hold in position while driving fasteners such as nails and cleats into the frame of a wall or ceiling structure. The weight and the unwieldy size of typical panels render it impractical for workmen of normal size and strength to repeatedly lift panels into position and hold them while actuating a pneumatic screw gun throughout the length of a typical work day. Usually, at least two workers will cooperate to manually lift a panel of ceiling panel building material overhead and position the panel in place against a ceiling structure. Then, while they hold the panel in place they drive several fasteners through the panel and into the frame structure, to support the panel in position.
Since sheet rock panels might each weigh on the order of 70 or 80 pounds, it will be appreciated that a certain minimum number of fasteners will be necessary to hold the panel in position without assistance of the workman. This can give rise to several serious problems, particularly with relatively inexperienced workmen involved in drywalling various structures with differently spaced studs and joists and with drywall panels of different weights and thicknesses. For example, failure of the workmen to install a sufficient number of fasteners into the building material, oftentimes results in the fasteners, intended to temporarily hold the panel in place during the permanent installation process, pulling free thus allowing the panel to fall upon release thereof by the workmen, thus endangering the drywallers themselves as well as nearby craftsman. Typically, once the panel is lifted into place and temporarily supported with an adequate number of fasteners, the workers release their hand support or supporting tools and continue driving additional fasteners through the panel and into the ceiling structure until the panel is permanently installed. This task typically requires two workers because of the temporary nature of the installation. Until an adequate number of fasteners are installed, there is a risk of injury to workers or damage to the panel or nearby structures should the panel come loose and fall from the ceiling. These risks are lessened if two workers remain available to support the panel should it unexpectedly fall while temporarily supported. This is often accomplished by the worker prepositioning and holding several fasteners, usually drywall screws, in his mouth or teeth, then lifting the panel in place with the assistance of his co-worker, and holding the panel with one hand while using his free hand to handle a power drill adapted for screw installation of the screws. He may use his mouth or teeth to insert one screw into the power drill and then drive the screw into the overhead panel, repeating this procedure until a sufficient number of fasteners have been placed into the panel to permanently secure the panel in place. This method leads to several problems. Most notably, the worker will quickly experience considerable fatigue when installing heavy building materials and will require frequent rest periods. Also, the failure to install a sufficient number of fasteners into the panel to ensure adequate, temporary support before discontinuing manual hand support may cause to the panel to fall from the ceiling structure as mentioned. A failure to install a sufficient number of fasteners may be the result of many factors, including: an inaccurate estimation of the weight of the building material, worker fatigue requiring removal of the worker's supporting hand so that he may rest, an inadequate number of fasteners being pre-positioned in the mouth which requires him to remove a supporting hand to get more fasteners, or the loss of power to or the fastener from the power drill. Workers installing building materials onto wall structures have employed the same methods and experienced the same type of problems associated with the installation of building materials onto ceiling structures.
Some efforts have been made to develop devices designed to assist workers with the installation of building materials on ceilings and walls. For example, workers have been known to utilize work-site building materials such as two by fours fastened together in a T-shaped arrangement with a horizontal cross-member fastened to the top of a vertical member which is cut to a length sufficient to temporarily support building materials against the ceiling or the wall structure while permanent installation is accomplished. Using this method, the workers, first, lift and place the building material against the ceiling or wall structure. Next, while the first two workers continue holding the material in place, a third worker erects and places and the T-shaped support underneath either a downward facing surface or a bottom edge of the building material against either the respective ceiling or wall structure. Once the temporary support is in place, the workers may then release the building material which is temporarily supported by the T-shaped support. However, this approach has many pit-falls. First, the height of the vertical member may be inaccurately cut too short so that the overhead or wall panel is balanced on the support and inadequately supported. Second, the fasteners connecting the cross-member protrude from the top of the member such that they may cause gouging or abrasion damage to the building materials when the T-shaped support is erected. Third, the cross and vertical members may tend to separate from one another during repeated use causing the brace to become unstable and unsatisfactory for continued use. The device is also unsatisfactory for installation of panels on ceiling and wall structures of differing heights as the vertical member must be recut to size or replaced for each installation situation. Also, aside from the above-mentioned disadvantages of using miscellaneous building site materials to construct temporary supports, such as two by fours and similar materials, use of such materials results in increased waste of building materials slated for other construction site purposes.
Attempts to eliminate the disadvantages such as, unnecessary construction site waste, and the need for multiple workers associated with the above described methods and devices, have led to the development of more sophisticated temporary support devices for aiding in the installation of building materials. Certain of these support devices have been designed to assist the workers in lifting building materials to the desired height and supporting the materials in a desired position until fasteners have been installed to permanently secure the materials in place against a ceiling or wall structure. Other support devices have been employed which do not assist in lifting the materials into position, but instead merely temporarily support the materials in place after they have been lifted into place and positioned by the workers. U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,910,421 to Panneton and 4,560,031 to Dixon et al. appear to disclose devices which aid in the lifting and support of ceiling panels. U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,375,934 to Elliott, 4,576,354 to Blessing, Sr., 4,695,028 to Hunter, 4,733,844 to Molloy, 4,928,916 to Molloy, 5,129,774 to Balseiro et al., and U.S. Pat. No. 5,329,744 to Sumter seem to disclose devices which aid in the support of ceiling panels once the panels have been lifted into position.
Devices such as those disclosed in the above-listed patents are undesirable to the worker because their use increases the difficulty encountered during installation of building materials onto ceiling and wall structures in addition to creating many inefficiencies and disadvantages for the worker. For example, some of these devices are incapable of use in smaller, confined work areas due to their considerable size. Other devices appear to be comprised of a large number of mechanisms and moving parts which add significant weight, complexity and failure points to the support device. It is preferable to employ light-weight devices which do not add to the burden of installing building materials which materials can themselves be extremely heavy as, for example, four foot by twelve foot, double sheet-rock panels. Many of the devices discussed in the prior art comprise devices which appear to be heavier than the heaviest building materials used in constructing ceilings and walls. Those devices which incorporate multiple vertical support members are particularly cumbersome to use for the common practice of installing multiple panels of ceiling or wall building materials onto respective ceiling or wall structures because the vertical support members must each be positioned, removed and replaced for each panel. Other devices in the prior art have many moving parts including gears and springs. Use of gears and springs creates many potential problems for workers. The gears may seize up and jam when exposed to common but troublesome worksite elements including sawdust, metal shavings, nails, staples and other debris. Springs experience, fatigue wear and deterioration after continued use and may even break in certain shock loading situations rendering the support device useless. Additionally, springs must be designed for a specific weight of building materials to be effective in temporarily restraining the building materials in position during installation. The prior art devices do not teach a means of accommodating the various loads corresponding to the various types of building materials. Additionally, the springs are designed to be compressed during installation of the support devices such that the worker can never be certain whether the building materials are positively supported with a force sufficient to prevent unwanted release of the building materials from the temporarily supported position. Further, the use of the compression springs in the devices does not provide the worker with positive feedback indicating that the support device is in the intended supporting orientation. The worker is forced to rely on an often times unreliable visual indication of whether the support device is properly oriented.
The gears and springs described above are often employed in conjunction with various types of jacking mechanisms which serve either to assist the worker in lifting the panel into the desired position for installation or to extend the overall length of the support device to support the panel or both. The use of the jacking mechanisms is also undesirable to the worker because it requires an additional hand to actuate a handle of the jacking mechanism. Typically, the worker employs one hand to lift and hold the building materials into position and the other hand to position and hold the support device in a vertical position leaving no means by which the jacking handle may be actuated without the aid of an additional worker. Even if the worker uses one hand to support the panel overhead, and the other hand to position the support device and then to actuate the jacking handle, such actions create difficulties in the event that actuation of the jacking handle dislodges the support device from the vertical position. Dislodgement may still occur even if the third worker was employed to erect the support device and actuate the jacking mechanism. Dislodgment of the support device is especially likely in the event the jacking mechanism jams or seizes during actuation due to the inevitable efforts of the workers to unseize or unjam the mechanism. These support devices which employ jacking mechanisms are also cumbersome and unwieldy to use for the installation of various types of building materials where the support device must be positioned, its length extended with a jacking mechanism, removed and then replaced again for installation of the next panel.
Previous devices have failed to adequately assist workers with a hand tool capable of properly supporting building materials during construction of ceilings and walls and other similar structures. Thus, what is needed by the art and has been heretofore unavailable, is a device which aids the worker in the installation of building materials and which particularly is: lightweight; durable; comprised by a minimal number of moving parts subject to wear or damage; capable of quick and easy transport, assembly, disassembly; capable of storage in small spaces; quickly and easily adjustable to multiple, predetermined heights; secured easily into a supporting position with a single-hand of a single worker; and which is easily removed and reinstalled for the repeated installation of building materials such as, for example, multiple ceiling or wall panels.